Federal prosecutors in at least four states are mounting investigations into what they describe as widespread fraud by compounding pharmacies in claims to the health-insurance program that covers 9.5 million U.S. military members and their families.
In the latest move, four Florida pharmacies last month agreed to pay $12.8 million combined to settle civil allegations that they falsely billed the insurance program Tricare for expensive pharmaceutical creams and gels to treat pain, scars and other ailments, according to A. Lee Bentley III, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida.
Two of the compounding pharmacies, which make customized medicines by mixing pharmaceutical ingredients, employed salespeople who paid doctors to write prescriptions to Tricare beneficiaries, prosecutors said. In some cases, doctors would conduct telephone consultations with beneficiaries and then write them prescriptions, despite having not met with the beneficiaries in person, prosecutors said. Those prescriptions were illegitimate because they weren’t based on genuine doctor-patient relationships, a violation of the federal False Claims Act, the prosecutors said. For the full article click here
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